Thursday, August 31, 2006

The 80's Through A Series of Tubes; Part 3 w/Orange Juice

You probably know Edwyn Collins, especially if you owned the Empire Records soundtrack. In 1995, his song "A Girl Like You" became a mild hit single here in the US and around the world, with the single getting video time on MTV along with it being played on the radio constantly.

It's a pity that I don't remember any of those radio DJ's mentioning the band that Collins fronted for about 8 years before he achieved any commercial success. Orange Juice had their fair share of early hits, but none the size of Collins' "A Girl Like You." Formed in Glasgow in 1976, the band could be compared to a lot of 80's British outfits (like The Smiths) but such comparisons are just unimaginative. Their debut single, "Falling and Laughing", released in 1980, effuses a sort of pop tenderness, without coming off as mawkish or schmaltzy.

My favorite album from the band is their first, You Can't Hide Your Love Forever. Released in 1982, (the year I was born!), the album is a rhapsody of songs focusing on romance, rejection...the typical subject matter for a lot of our beloved 80's bands. Luckily, the album doesn't feel too dated upon listening to it now, 24 years later. It's obviously a product of the 80's but it still has it's place amongst the albums we still listen to from that time. Most bands today might wear their hearts on their sleeves, but few have the lyrical wit and musical charm,that Orange Juice possessed, to make that enjoyable. I've read that Franz Ferdinand lists Orange Juice as one of their major influences, but it's harder to hear the effect of the music on them. At least when you compare Orange Juice to Belle and Sebastian, the sound of OJ's influence is dead obvious.

But enough with all that! Here is a video of the band playing "Falling and Laughing" live;

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

The 80's Through A Series of Tubes; Part Two w/The Residents

I remember the first time someone told me about The Residents. I think it was my friend Josiah. I had spent the night in his dorm room and was wading through his record collection. He had a lot of great stuff and when I came across The Commercial Record he got this very devious grin on his face and grabbed it from my hands before I could really comment on it.

As each minute long song played it's course on his turntable, I felt dumbstruck by the music. Each song was a minute long, and as my friend was explaining to me as they played, meant to be repeated three times in order to become the "perfect" pop song, since the minute long clips consisted of a verse and a chorus and a pop song is simply those things repeated over and over again. The music sounded deranged, a bit of Captain Beefheart meets Moondog meets a lot of drugs, maybe. It was a little hard to pinpoint at times.

"Who the hell are these guys?" I asked.

His grin opened up to me, becoming larger and even more devious looking. "No one knows who they are."

Of course, I thought he was simply messing around with me, so I shook my head at him and said, "And how is that possible?"

And so Josiah proceeded, with an ever widening grin, to tell me all about The Residents.

The band, living in San Francisco, had been together since the early 70's. The Commercial Album, which had been self-released in 1980, was not their first album. Indeed, it wasn't their last either, because the band was still together (as far as anyone knew) and making music.

"How did they get their name?" I asked. "And how does no one know who they are? Do they ever play live?"

Josiah answered each question gleefully. It's wonderful when a friend obviously takes pleasure in introducing another friend to something new. The story behind how they ended up with a name like The Residents is probably my favorite story about a band, ever. Apparently, the band, having sent a major label their work, hadn't written any names down for the return address, so when the major label rejected the recording and sent it back to them, they'd written "To The Residents" on the return package, and that's how The Residents (as a band name) were born.


We don't know who they are, because in pictures and when the band appears publicly, they are always wearing masks and costumes. Most notably, the masks are of huge eyeballs with tophats and often they dress in suits to match the tophats. So, that's how no one knows who they are and yes, they make public appearances. Like this one, on Canada's MuchMusic in 1986;



And here they are playing live in Oslo that same year;

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

The 80's Through A Series of Tubes: An Overview of the Decade Through YouTube

Sometimes I tend to overlook the eighties when it comes to....well, anything. I don't particularly like clothing from the eighties (and I am slightly horrified that a lot of eighties styles are coming back "in" amongst people my age. Seriously, wasn't once, enough?) and I was too young to understand the whole Cold War/Reaganomics mentality. I do, however, remember Bush Sr. being elected when I was in 4th grade and I remember spitting on some kid for calling my parents hippies since I mentioned that they hadn't voted for him. (I guess things don't change all THAT much, do they?)

As far as music goes, I don't tend to look back on the 80's kindly. Perhaps it's because I've been to one too many eighties dance nights, where the dj's idea of an awesome set means playing New Order's "Temptation" and kids react as if it's the only good song to come out of the decade. It wasn't, although, it was one of the better songs out of a slew of horrible, trite, pop hits from groups like WHAM!.

So, this week, at Just Relax, I'm going to peruse youtube for some of the better groups and songs from the eighties. I'm going to try to avoid the obvious, such as groups like The Smiths, and try to find clips from bands we don't tend to think of when we reflect back 20 years.

To kick things off, at a suggestion from my friend Frouse, I've looked up REM's first ever television appearance in 1983 on the David Letterman show. Perhaps REM seems an obvious choice, (which I said I was going to avoid), but I find that most people I talk to tend to want to talk about the band's work in the 90's(Out of Time, Automatic For the People, Monster, New Adventures in Hi-Fi, Up) , which is odd to me, because some of their best work is their earliest (Murmur, Reckoning, Life's Rich Pageant, Document), like the song they play in this clip, "Radio Free Europe."

Friday, August 25, 2006

Grace Jones - Demolition Man

Ok, so I lied. Here I go back two decades to the video for Grace Jone's cover of "Demolition Man" (it was originally a song by The Police.) Someone put this on a mix cd for me a year ago and it's one of those songs I like to throw on when I need to get motivated, (i.e. the song makes me want to dance.) The beginning of this video absolutely creeps me out, but it's kind of genius!

Electrelane - Film Music

"Film Music" is, according to allmusic.com, Electrelane's first single from 2000. I had no idea that they'd been around that long, but I am not all that surprised. Sometimes it takes the listening world awhile to catch on to things. I'm happy to say that since 2000, Electrelane has released three albums and the listening world (at least the small one I inhabit) is catching on. While, I don't know much about Rock It To The Moon, I am a huge fan of both The Power Out (2004) and Axes (2005).

Sooo, since it's Friday and I've been bombarding you people with, as one friend put it, "a bunch of fuddy duddy bands from before we were born" (pssh!), here's the video for "Film Music." It's not exactly the newest of music, but it's definitely not as old as the usual things I post.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

The Incredible String Band - Everything's Fine Right Now (live 1970)

Since I mentioned them (The Incredible String Band), I decided to see what I could rustle up on youtube and this was my first hit. For those of you looking for amazing live clips of some obscure/lesser known bands from the 60's-70's, I highly suggest doing a search on youtube for "beat club."

Of course, if you do that, I might have a lot less material to post because you'll have already found it. Oops.

Oh well, enjoy!

The Pentangle - Train Song

Apparently this clip is from a BBC special in the '70's. I've been listening to The Pentangle's album Cruel Sister quite a lot lately and although this song doesn't appear on it, it is a pretty good example of what I like so much about this band. I'm told that their music can be hit or miss. For sure, the music seems very earnest and not as humorous as music from bands like The Incredible String Band, but it's still worth a listen if you're a fan of the folk genre. I can definitely hear a lot of Pentangle's influence when I listen to The Espers.

Devo + Neil Young (clip from the Human Highway)

I realize I've been posting a lot of Neil Young clips since I started this blog (I believe this is the third one) but I promise this one will make you, my few readers, happy because Neil Young + DEVO is always well worth your time.

Monday, August 21, 2006

The Monks (live in 1966) on German TV

One word; amazing!

Neil Young on the Colbert Report

I don't think I need to say much about this, although it's a shame Colbert cuts Young off and they don't get to finish singing 'Let's Impeach the President.'

Monday, August 07, 2006

OKGO's "Here It Goes Again"

I'm not the biggest fan of OKGO's music, but the band consistently puts out really great videos. This is perhaps the most amazingly choreographed dance video that I've ever seen and it's just a bunch of dudes on treadmills!